Weekly Photo Challenge: Gathering

Gathering. Well, it’s one of my favorite things. A sweet meditative time with the good company of Edgar Rice Burro and the rest of my herd. Manure is the physical confirmation of everyone’s health; it’s the still time that my eyes run each body for injuries. Not to mention, it’s my greatest mental luxury. I swear, I have no idea how other people “gather” their thoughts. All these things just seem to come together for me when I have a fork in my hand.

You know, it’s amazing… When I started doing these photo challenges, with the self-imposed stipulation that they all be about my little farm, I thought it would be hard. I assumed that WordPress had an upscale urban mentality that would be at total odds with my barn world.

Wait. Gathering: That is the gentrified city-word for mucking. I’ve got that right, don’t I?

Anna Blake, Infinity Farm

(WordPress Photo Challenge is a weekly prompt to share a photo–I enjoy twisting these macro prompts to share our micro life here on the Colorado prairie. My photos are taken with my phone, on my farm. No psych, definitely not high tech.)

You are in good company regarding the “gathering” part of the equine experience. Having helpers with many high degrees of education and employment background that have found peace
in the morning stables. I’m always happy to share the mucking duties.

I love the gathering of manure. I just cleaned my little pasture today. All is right with the world. I also love when my sweet gelding Jade, backs up to me and plops one onto my fork. I did not teach him that. He is a neatnick. Can you tell how much this activity improves my mood? Makes me laugh.

Love this meditation and picture on cleaning the barn, and how manure is a sign of health. Maybe it’s time for me to turn off Diane Rehm when I clean out the barn and just listen to the natural sounds…

It was starting to get dark. My husband and I had gotten ourselves lost on a long hike into Hayden Valley in Yellowstone. We’d already seen a fresh wolf kill and heard a grizzly crashing through the forest.

We ventured to a clearing and were considering our options when a big burly guy came tromping out of the woods.

Royce was a hero. He worked for the Forest Service, lived in windy Gardiner Montana, could bugle like an elk, enjoyed the muddy mountain lion paw prints on the hood of his truck, loved his wife who was a Cordon Bleu chef and with whom he enjoyed vacations of packing up the horses with gourmet food and hitting the trail.

When we told Royce we were from Laguna Beach, CA. He mentioned that he had spent some time in Southern California and “that you really had to have your poop-in-a-group” to live there

I think Royce was a man who whenever and wherever – always had his poop-in-a-group.

Well put. I definitely do some of my best thinking while mucking stalls :-). It’s my daily anti-stress, come back to myself and my herd time. I like it so much that I really don’t mind it. And I have a helper too, Hobo the barn cat who knows I will swing by the vet room on my way with the wheel barrow and feed him.

Agreed. And it isn’t that he doesn’t pick up the fork (then run off with it and break the tines with his pointy little toes) but he got promoted to a managerial position. He wishes you and your boy a great new year.